


Sea Change: Part Two

by TextualDeviance



Series: The Raven and the Dove [13]
Category: Vikings - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 17:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1697009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TextualDeviance/pseuds/TextualDeviance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Lagertha is gone, Ragnar is furious with Athelstan for his part in helping her to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea Change: Part Two

**Author's Note:**

> Set at the end of 2x01, and follows [Sea Change: Part One](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1694228)

All things considered, their hunting had been a success. They had bagged a pheasant and two large rabbits—Athelstan even scoring one himself—and had had several enjoyable, if light, conversations. The crisp, clean air, far away from the dust and grime of the village, did much to lift Athelstan’s spirits. For a time, he even forgot his purpose in suggesting the day out in the first place. He had made it clear to Ragnar that he still did not wish to engage in anything other than searching for prey, but aside from that, the ice between them seemed slowly to be melting.

Their return, however, was inevitable, and all along the way, his stomach churned. He veered off from Ragnar shortly after their arrival, telling him he would bring the pheasant to the cooks for the evening’s meal, and then hid in his room, hoping that being curled up on his bed and praying would somehow keep him from facing Ragnar’s wrath.

It did not.

The look on the earl’s face as he stormed into the room caused a jarring memory to reassert itself in Athelstan’s mind: Being found crouching behind the altar, cradling his Gospel as if it were the Christ child himself, and begging in the language of the Northmen for this dangerous man to spare his life.

“You knew!” Ragnar shouted. “You knew she was leaving, didn’t you?” He grabbed a drinking vessel from the table and threw it against the wall, where it shattered into powdery splinters. 

“Yes.” Athelstan wrapped his arms around himself, as poor a shield as they made.

“Is that why we went hunting today? To keep me from following her?”

He looked away.

“I’ll never forgive you for this.” Ragnar stalked toward him, leaning over the bed and getting in his face. “Never.” He moved again to the table, and shoved a pile of mending onto the floor.

For some odd reason, that callous, childish act—fouling up the work he’d been doing—lit a fire within Athelstan. A boldness he never knew he had drew him up from the bed. “Then what use am I to you as your friend?” he asked, almost calmly.

“What?” Ragnar turned back, staring at him.

“I am your slave,” he said, getting on his knees on the wooden floor. “This is all I am to you now. So beat me, if you will. Sell me. Honestly, you may as well kill me. You were going to have me killed anyway, yes? You now have a chance.” Reaching for the pile of clothing and sewing implements, he found the small blade he used to trim thread and frayed cloth. He held it up to Ragnar, and tilted his head back. “You wanted a willing sacrifice? Well, here I am. If you do it quickly, maybe the gods will smile on you for once, and bring her back to you.”

Ragnar snatched the blade from his hand, and crouched down. He grabbed a handful of hair, pulling back Athelstan’s head farther. He lay the blade aside one of the throbbing arteries in his slave’s exposed neck.

“What are you waiting for, Ragnar?” Athelstan locked eyes with him. “You have lost nearly everything else in your life. You may as well lose me, too.”

The blade pressed against him, and he felt the sharp sting as his flesh parted for its edge. But no sooner had the first small trickle of blood begun to flow down his neck than Ragnar dropped the blade in his lap and collapsed, sitting down hard on the floor in front of where Athelstan knelt. He curled in on himself, and began to sob.

Athelstan had never seen Ragnar in such a state—not even when he had learned of the loss of his unborn son. He was shattered: a raw, empty shell where a man used to be. Pity replaced fear; replaced anger, and Athelstan leaned forward, folding his master into his arms as he had Gyda’s limp, lifeless body.  

It seemed a lifetime passed before they parted. Luckily, no one else in the vicinity had heard nor attempted to find them.

Lifting his head from Athelstan’s lap, Ragnar brushed at his swollen, wet face. “You are the only family I have left, now.” He sat up and stared at the floor.

The shock of hearing the word in reference to himself took him aback for a moment, but he figured it to be hyperbole. That Ragnar no longer considered Rollo family wasn’t a surprise, but it still seemed odd that he would say such a thing when there were clearly others in his life. “What about Aslaug? What about the child she carries?”

Ragnar shrugged. “I will love my child no matter what, but his mother? I barely know her. She came to me as I was weak, and now I am stuck with the bad decision I made to be with her. I may grow to love her in time, but for now, I have few feelings for her that aren’t related to the baby in her belly.”

“And your friends? Torstein? Floki?”

“I love them dearly, and their presence in my house is a gift. Yet they are not what you are to me—what you have always been.”

Athelstan’s eyes narrowed a little. “Always? Then why did you try to have me sacrificed?”

Ragnar looked up, frowning. “Do you not know?”

“Lagertha told me it was her idea—she said she was desperate to give you more sons.”

Ragnar nodded. “It was her idea, but do you know why we chose _you_?”

Athelstan shook his head.

“You should understand it. Your religion is also full of sacrifices, is it not?”

“It is,” he acknowledged. “Monks and priests sacrifice pleasure, wealth and comfort. Laypeople give up their worldly goods and tithe money to the church. We have a holy period of 40 days each spring in which we are required to give up something dear, to remind us of the far-greater sacrifices that Jesus made for us.”

“There you have it, then,” Ragnar said.

“I still don’t follow.”

Ragnar smiled sadly, and reached for Athelstan’s face. “As you said: ‘something dear.’ Aside from our children, there was nothing more dear to us than you. A true sacrifice isn’t the loss of something you can do without: it is the loss of something that you love.”

Athelstan almost stopped breathing for a moment. All the long months he had been furious with Ragnar for apparently feeling so little for him that he wanted him dead, he had been completely wrong. He didn’t _want_ the death of his friend—his companion; his lover—and that was entirely the point.

“It was why I couldn’t tell you, you know,” Ragnar continued. “If I had said something, that would have made it real, and that was a reality I could not bear to confront.” He petted the young man’s face gently, then pulled away again.

The realization of how wrong he had been was sobering—and also put a serious twist in the path Athelstan had sworn to follow in the wake of what he had believed was a betrayal. He still felt that God had saved him from the sacrifice—and certainly had saved him from the plague—but in context with Ragnar’s explanation, his own decision to go back to his vows seemed pointless. God had not turned Ragnar’s heart against him in punishment for his sins; indeed, Ragnar’s heart had been true to him the entire time. Had God really been against their union, that would not have been the case.

A strange thought crept into his mind. “Do you still wish you could somehow have pledged something to the gods—something besides the sacrifice that Leif made?”

Ragnar sighed. “I do. I am grateful for what Leif did for us, but I fear it was not enough. The gods have so hurt me of late that I feel I must have angered them somehow. Or perhaps I angered your god. That thought had occurred to me as well.”

“It’s possible, I suppose. I imagine my god would bring any wrath upon me, however, instead of you, and it seems he has not done so at all. He has shown me great favor, in fact. I can only imagine that He believes I have done nothing wrong. Strange as it seems, in all my fear over angering Him with my sins, it seems I worried for naught.”

“So what are you thinking?”

Athelstan moved closer to him, and took his hand. “Your people honor the gods with things other than sacrifice, do they not? I have observed many other rites than those of blood.”

Ragnar nodded. “It is true, yes. We pray, we plant; we offer food and drink, among other things.”

“And you have sex as well, yes? That is part of what Thyri did to prepare me, if I am correct.”

“Yes.” Ragnar searched his face, his expression growing hopeful.

Athelstan smiled, and leaned over. Taking Ragnar’s face in his hands, he pressed a deep, breathtaking kiss on him. Pulling back, he looked into Ragnar's eyes and whispered, “Then let us honor your gods.”


End file.
